This invention relates to a structure of a door opening/closing apparatus for a vehicle.
A conventional door opening/closing apparatus typically includes an arm member coupled with a door, and a driving unit provided inside a vehicle to drive the arm. The arm member is arranged to be protrudable from inside of a vehicle body, through the space which the door occupies when closed, pushing the door open and pulling the door shut. To give an example of the conventional door opening/closing apparatus, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application, Publication No. 2000-335245 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 6,401,392) discloses a power operated apparatus for a vehicle door, in which for the purpose of securing as wide a door opening as possible, a through opening for letting in and out the arm member is provided in a rear-end body panel separately at a position outside of an inner peripheral edge of the rear-end body panel defining the door opening of the vehicle body.
However, according to the above structure, a through opening need be formed outside of the border of the door opening, i.e., in a rear-end body panel (normally comprised of an inner body panel and an outer body panel) of the vehicle body, thus necessitating a reinforcement for enhancing rigidity of the body panel along and near an inner periphery thereof defining the through opening. Moreover, to prevent water (moisture), dust, etc. from entering the interior of the vehicle body through the through opening, a waterproof structure and/or a seal member for enhancing hermeticity of the through opening need be provided, which would disadvantageously increase the complexity of the structure as a whole.
The present invention has been created to address the above-discussed problems, and it is one exemplary object of the present invention to provide a structure of a door opening/closing apparatus allowing a door opening to have as wide an area as possible, which structure can serve to obviate the need for including a reinforcement structure or an additional seal structure, so that the door opening/closing apparatus can be simplified in structure.